Filmmaker John Hughes has died.

Johnny Cat

The Breakfast Club was all I ate, breathed, and slept during my time as a 17 yr old. Hughes was special, and will be forever remembered.

annoyingmouse

Ugly Canuck. Get a life. 7 lengthy posts doing very little other than trying to show off your holier than thou opinions about a man who’s just died might not be wrong but it sure is pathetic. Go and do something else. Anything else. I hear Michael Bay, McG and Uwe Boll are still alive. Go do something useful like trolling their IMDb boards.

Hughes made simple films. Some good. Some bad. If you don’t think that “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” is true I just feel sorry for you. Go outside and play.

Chanttojah

So totally sad.
The Flag in Shermer Illinois is at half mast.

R.I.P.

aldasin

RIP to a man people obviously admired, but I’m sorry, his output was mostly commercial drek. If you were 13 and thought it was profound at the time, that’s understandable, but I don’t think it stands up to the test of time.
Just one man’s opinion; I know I’ll be in the minority.

Dan

I’ve always thought John Hughes was overrated, but maybe that’s because I was on the younger side when most of his movies were released.

Maybe they “reflect the spirit of the 80s” or something, but I don’t consider anything he’s done to be as timeless as most people tend to believe.

Mostly, his movies speak to the naive mentality of young, middle-class white people. A bit of fun without having to think too deeply about anyone else’s problems but your own.

arlopickens

@6

Surely you’re not talking about Home Alone 2

wolfiesma

They need to start running the John Hughes marathons on tv so we can all catch up on what we missed. :)

EH

Aldasin: Believe it or not, it’s not easy for adults to create movies that are profound to a 13 year old. Not only that, but teenagers year olds were not a huge cinematic commercial market at the time, so pretty much anything that came out for teenagers was (more or less) necessarily aimed at all of them. Extra points for condescending to “people” who admired him. “Not me, however. I hate those movies.”

If you have any tips on YA movies with Chekhovian subtext or whatever your criteria value, do tell.

RIP, and he hadn’t made anything I liked in a long time, but his impact is undeniable and changed my life.

Now make yourself one.

EricT

@9 Molly was living in Paris doing theater and is currently playing a pregnant mother on the abc family show Secret Lives of the American Teen or some such. And she is actually expecting.

Antinous / Moderator

How come Molly Ringwald didn’t live up to my expectations?

Perhaps you didn’t make them clear to her. Ms. Ringwald lived and worked in France for a while, she seems to enjoy marrying foreign men and she has three children and a pretty lively stage career.

Ugly Canuck

RIP, Mr.Hughes. Too young to check out now.

Aldasin: As one ages, matures, or changes, one’s tastes naturally change with experience and reflection: otherwise, nobody would drink beer!

What you think is fantastic at thirteen won’t be what’s fantastic at eighteen : nor at fifty.
The point is, will the work still speak to thirteen or eighteen year olds in the future?

Who knows?
But Hughes’ stuff was not just “commercial drek”: it was very successful “commercial drek”. On the scales of commerce, that makes a difference. (Not so on the scales of artistic merit, though! To paraphrase Egon, do not cross the streams of art and commerce. Commercial success in an artistic endeavor says nothing about the aesthetics of the art itself: nor does the lack of commercial success.

Fashions and tastes never stop changing. An artist can be judged from many viewpoints: commercial success during an artist’s own lifetime – even if that success is fleeting – counts: for may reach, but very very few grab the brass ring of success, even briefly.
That it “does not stand the test of the ages” is nether here nor there while speaking of our contemporaries: that opinion (for subjective opinion, either more or less informed, is all that discussions of futurity, and its tastes, can ever be) will be proved or disproved beyond the term of our lives.
More to the point, I suppose, is that every generation produces (and has produced) artists whose success expires with them, and yet others whose works (if the works are not intended to be ephemeral:even so, sometimes) have that “special something” to carry it over and across the generations.

As the film medium is itself but a mere century old,it will take IMO several generations more for this art’s”aging” to be appreciated. After all, films were themselves considered ephemera until the 1950s: it was TV, and later video and now the Net, that extended a film’s “shelf life”. (Eg. Fox Studios destroyed their entire stock of silent film negatives in the late Forties: why spend money storing things that no one will watch again?)

Personally, I dislike all of his movies. Too simple for my tastes. And I was not an impressionable young person in the 1980s: much harder to impress….
I would have preferred that Murdoch had gone bust in 1989, but Hughes’ ‘Home Alone’ saved Fox!
That’s Hughes’ legacy, no doubt unintended: saving Fox – so that you could get all that unbiasednews from them today!

EricT

@12
Wow just wow. Thanks for edjubacating me on the nature of art and the John Hughs Legacy. All this time I was thinking he made teen comedys that was the benchmark for those to come. And all this time is was to make sure Fox news could whip up the wingnuts into a frenzy.

Too bad I will have to go home and tell my 15 year old daughter the movies we have been watching all summer were really financing the rightwing take over of the US. She will be really disapointed

EH

Ugly Canuck: You’re a self-absorbed fool and you’re threadjacking.

Timothy Hutton

I don’t care what Commander Queeg-like Geometric Logical Connection you make between John Hughes’ film and Fox News, to say that one exists because of the other is BS – “Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc”.

In my opinion, Fox is a market-driven reaction to other forces in the market, much like Air America was a market-driven reaction to something going on in the market (conservative talk radio). Fox would exist without Mr. Hughes string of successful films. “Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc”.

ryan873

If you judge an artist by his impact on the hearts of his audience, then Mr. Hughes was America’s Shakespeare.

aldasin

“he made teen comedys that was the benchmark for those to come”

See, you say that like it’s a good thing.
Teen comedies are a cancer on the ass of humanity.

Marchhare

I’m sure there were the same sorts of haters when Mr. Rogers and Jim Henson died. Oh well.

It’s sad, indeed. Those movies were incredibly meaningful to me as pre-teen/teenager in the Chicago area. I was old enough to appreciate the themes, yet still a couple years away from high school such that I was able to look forward to high school through the lens of Hughes’ movies.

They were a significant part of my adolescence. RIP John Hughes.

Anonymous

Wow. What a firestorm. Lovers and haters.

Well, I didn’t enjoy ALL his movies. The chick flics didn’t quite do it for me. Others like Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Weird Science were repeats at the movies and on cable. Yes, goofy guys, smartasses and the suggestion of T&A, what else does a teen need to laugh? Some bits still make me crack a smile.

If you really feel that you need to berate these movies, get over yourself. Maybe you should be tackling bigger dragons, Mr/Ms. Paladin.

I will remember some of his work fondly for all the entertainment it provided me and my friends, and regret the passing of Mr. Hughes.

EH

old troll is old.

complicity

A better montage of John Hughes movie clips set to music:
http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/archives/2009/06/brooklyn_brat_p.html
(second video)

Ugly Canuck

Look, erict, I don’t know what or who financed Hughes’ other works: the historical fact of the matter is that in 1989 Rupetrt Murdoch’s News Corp was kept alive by the checks from the success of Home Alone: but for Mr. Hughes’ success with that particular film, no “Fox News” today.

That people can leave unintended legacies, as the consequences of their deeds, seems to be beyond some. Such legacies have nothing to do with the morality or even the intention of that person…I doubt very much that Hughes’ was even aware of news Corp’s problems at the time!

I for one will not limit my judgments of people’s works and lives to what children may “think” of their work. Hughes’ primary continuing effect (on those of us not looking to entertain teen-agers today) is that his work (no doubt unintentionally) allowed News Corp to survive: what is the momentary and soon forgotten enjoyment of children compared to that kind of real-world, still continuing political influence?

I’ll say it again: regardless of the merit, or lack thereof, in his work, it was IN FACT his work which did allow News Corp to continue in business in 1989. Thatis a real and continuing influence on the lives of many more millions than have ever seen, or will ever see, a John Hughes movie.

To quote Deep Throat: Follow the money.

Children like lots of stupid things, some of which are bad for them. And as a class, they are very very easy to manipulate and entertain (and to sell to, as Hollywood and Mad Ave well know!), bless them. But they are without exception the worst critics and judges.

Speaking of children,in the late Julia Phillip’s book, ‘You’ll Never eat Lunch In This Town Again’

http://www.amazon.com/Youll-Never-Lunch-This-Again/dp/0571216234/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249601521&sr=8-1

it is strongly implied that Ms. Ringwald was being “squired” around Hollywood by certain bigwigs while yet underage – and Ms. Philips’ IIRC, wonders aloud, in the book, as to why those “players” were not arrested.

The good that men do is oft’ buried with them, whilst the evil they do outlives them.

Selling to children is immoral, IMO.

Anonymous

As someone who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, some of his movies hit a bit of a raw nerve. Mostly his films were fun, campy rollics. There’s nothing wrong with that. At least they had stories. I can’t honestly say the same for the past 10-15 years worth of special effects vehicles that have been passing as films meant to appeal to teens.

I hope there’s a talented writer/director out there just waiting to capture the essence of teenager-hood in about 14 years so that my son can enjoy the same guilty pleasure in films about his generation.

Anonymous

And don’t forget his tenure at National Lampoon…

His article in the SEX issue in the late 70s was a classic.

blatantdisregard

“Buck Melanoma, Moley Russell’s wart” gets me rolling every time!

Anonymous

What a bunch of self-righteous old trolls! He made POPULAR art and was good at it! Enough said…RIP.

jphilby

“Planes, Trains, Automobiles” was the movie that let me stomach Steve Martin again.

RIP John … thanks for some of the most human movies made in 30 years.

Anonymous

I loved his work as a teen… say what you will about his status as a commercial artist, but his movies dealt with a lot of the things young people deal with: alienation, self doubt, geekdom, sexuality, depression, class, etc in a sympathetic and humorous way. I’ve seen some of his films more recently and was impressed at how well he was able to use the medium to speak to young people without patronizing them.

Mark Temporis

Only one of his I enjoyed was Breakfast Club. I never got the Ferris Bueller love and Ben Stein has retroactively made that movie shit IMO.

Still, 59′s too young.

EricT

@15 Sorry you dont like it, fair enough. I happen to enjoy the low brow with the highbrow. Like Michael Bay movies, some things are just fun and who doesn’t like to have fun.

Ugly Canuck

By “selling”, I mean “marketing”, particularly TV advertising.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t “hate” Mr.Hughes, nor his works. They are (and were) AFAIK intended for a demographic of which I’m not a part. So they’re not for me: but so what?

I did think it important that his role, such as it was, in keeping Fox Studios alive back in 1989 be noted.

And for all who do love his movies: rock on. Personal experience trumps all argument: far be it from me, to insert myself between the lover and the beloved!

Upon reflection, it seems to me that arguing the merit, or lack thereof, of particular movies, so as to change an other’s opinion of it, is like trying to use rational arguments to overcome someone’s personal religion, where such is based on personal revelation: it is not going to happen. Similarly, if you liked a movie, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to talk you into disliking it. The most I could do is offer my personal observations: and then it’s up to the other to agree or disagree.

But if you can get to them before they experience the revelation (or before they see the movie for themselves), your opinions and arguments have a better chance of success, of influencing their opinion. The religious know to “get at them when they’re young”: that is, before they have the experience to contradict their teaching. Just so, with movie critics: if you have not yet seen the movie, who are you to disagree or agree? And when you do finally see the movie, you’ll be “pre-prepared”, with an opinion already in your pocket: with which to agree or dis-agree, as the case may be, but which in either case serves to “pre-structure” your thoughts about the movie, before you experience the film…boy it really does co-relate to religion, doesn’t it? just replace “film/movie” with “life-experiences”…

The audience is, so to speak, “cognitively prepared” and pre-disposed to structure and analyze their subsequent experience(s) along the lines previously set out by the critic, or the priest, or the teacher. This is by no means a bad thing in all cases.

But what young person goes to the movies to think? Or to be educated?
Well, intentions here, just as with Hughes’ saving of Fox Studios, are not so important.
ALL movies for young people, without exception, entertain (or at least they try to) AND educate. The latter, moreover, cannot be helped, for young people are learning at all times – experience is teaching them, 24/7, like it or not, just try to stop it! – that’s what being young means, IMO. They are learning from everything, even if they are only learning how to be bored.

But what is it, that is/was being taught by Hughes’ films? As I have not seen his movies – other than long enough to turn the channel – you all will have to teach me, I’m afraid. I suppose that I too have suffered some “cognitive pre-disposition”, some prejudice, from my reading of critiques of Hughes’ works. After all, it’s very difficult these days not to hear something about a film before you’ve seen it.

tyrone goldberg

How has a forum on john hughes become something so bleak and downbeat. Has adulthood really stamped out every last ounce of playfulness, innocence and imagination? Have we really let our adult arrogance and need to appear intelligent wreck movies that good or bad touched many of us as children. This guy spoke to a generation, that is not an easy thing to do.

Now, connecting home alone to fox news? Politicizing and judging john hughes? Really? I bet there are few things that we do in a day that can’t ultimately be connected to things that run counter to our politics.

Is this what it takes to get a seat in the ivory tower? Yikes.

EricT

@25 Canuck, you need a big plate of Ratatouille. Recapture your inner child.

[/troll interaction and getting on with my life]

ndollak

#6, 9 & 15 — I’m glad to see I’m not alone. While there are bits & pieces of “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” that I find amusing, overall, they’re sappy, vulgar and nonsensical without building their own surreality (in other words, poorly thought-out; the nonsense comes across as plot flaws rather than a master at play). As for his other movies, I couldn’t stand them at all. What’s with “The Breakfast Club”? Improbable premise masquerading as high school aside, it bugged the heck out of me that each kid was a broad stereotype, and that in order for them to get along, they all had to become “the Dirtbag” by taking drugs. I was in high school myself when that movie came out, and EVERYONE (teachers included) insisted that I HAD to see it. I saw it, and thought less of everyone I knew as a result.

I’m sure Mr. Hughes was a very nice guy (after all, he must have had some rapport with kids to have made so many movies starring them), and I realize that his movies appeal to a substantial chunk of the population. But I cannot honestly say that I enjoy them, or that I even see what their appeal is.

Ugly Canuck

Aah yes, the Lampoon: I had a subscription back in the early Seveties…73 to 76, IIRC…but alas! most of my collection has been scattered by time and accident…as Mr.Hughes was 57 , back in the seventies he would have been in his twenties…quite likely writing some of his freshest stuff. Gee, I don’t even know if I ever read his stuff. How many ‘sex’ issues did the Lampoon put out? Was it just the one? 78 or 79? Cause that may have been too late for me…as I stopped buying the Lampoon around the time the late M. O’Donoghue started writing for SNL…77 I think. Still, thinking about it, I do seem to recall Hughes’ by-line…
Oddly, another Lampoon alumnus, PJ O’Rourke, has become a vocal right-winger, IIRC. ( I seem to remember PJ baying for blood after 9-11…or even before, during the Bush I’s time.) I admit that I enjoyed PJ’s Lampoon-era, openly racist (and misogynist, but that may have been the other writers) “humor”, when I was a kid(ie under 16)…but to look at that stuff now…sheesh. A couple of years ago I leafed through the old Lampoons that do remain a-moldering in my Archives, and they aren’t so funny anymore. In fact, some of it seems just hate literature masquerading as humor…but that’s another rant, for another day. (OTOH, to be fair, some of it remains very very funny, even today.)
“Outrageous” stuff, sold as ‘humor’, sold well back then, before how easy that material was to create became apparent…not to mention its heartlessness and cruelty. Ah,youth! So easy to impress (and separate from its money) in its ignorance, stupidity and cruelty!
And Ben Stein got a career boost from Bueller, you say? Not having seen the film, I had no idea. Gee, I was not looking to posit such, but now that it’s been mentioned, maybe there was/is a right-wing media conspiracy…perhaps erict has protested too much, that which I did not state…lol.

Well, back OT, I did enjoy planes, trains and automobiles, so I guess I have seen – and liked – a Hughes movie! But “great movie” is too far, “entertaining movie” is more apt.

Nevertheless I say again may Mr.Hughes RIP. He left too young.

MITTZNZ

Check out his writing credits on imdb. That’s all I have to say.

Ugly Canuck

This is the internet.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000455/

C/mon Mittnzz, make it easy for us!

aldasin

“Has adulthood really stamped out every last ounce of playfulness, innocence and imagination?”

No, have you heard of the Cohen Brothers, Terry Gilliam, Ron Howard, Penny Marshall, Peter Jackson?
Playfullness and imagination don’t have to be dummed down. Innocence is bullshit, but to each his own.

I just get sick of these obit threads where some entertainment industry type passes and there is supposed to be a unanimous agreement about how awesome that movie was 20 years ago when you were in high school. You have sentimental feelings for it, we get it. But for a lot of us that lived in the 80′s the world was not a John Hughs movie.

Takuan

he could have made evil shit like many others and chose not to. Rest in peace.

Anonymous

Allow me to be the first (??) to simply commend the filmmaker for, in so few hours and with some obvious omissions, making a wonderful little tribute to John Hughes, with, of course, the able assistance of the music of The Who — whom I cannot imagine would begrudge the use of their immortal strains to creatively enshrine such a poignant moment in time.

Ugly Canuck

Well shut my mouth! Nate and Hayes is a fine under-rated film!!

http://www.amazon.com/Nate-Hayes-Tommy-Lee-Jones/dp/B000EWBNN2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1249612082&sr=8-1

And the “Vacation” films have their moments, too: Christmas Vacation, which I’ve already pre-ordered from Big river, on blu-ray ( I do hope the price drops, though!):

http://www.amazon.com/National-Lampoons-Christmas-Vacation-Collectors/dp/B002H3EUAE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1249612243&sr=8-2

As for those who don’t like political talk, all movies (bar none) are inherently political. Asare all books, for that matter. Mr.Hughes was, amongst other thing, a cog in a big business entertainment machine:amongstother things, that same machine makes politics itself its business….to say his work (or any work produced by a big media co. for that matter) was “apolitical” is IMO naive, and simply wrong.

Mr.Hughes’ work never said anything political except to re-affirm the status quo…which Americans in particular seem to have difficulty understanding as being itself a political orientation, a political stance: a stance which says, all is fine, no need for political change.. . “non-political” in the context of popular art means “everything is fine, go back to sleep”: art becomes opium.

An artist? Or an anesthesiologist?

davedorr9

I, personally, loved his movies as a (pre)teen and found them to capture a kind of exuberance + angst that I haven’t seen before or since.

I mean, fundamentally they were optimistic movies that captured some of the basic themes in the world I grew up in, and gave me hope that I would find a way forward. That is all.

wolfiesma

Sifting through stacks of clothing cast-offs at one of these fill a bag for 10 bucks sales, I came across a number of old bridesmaid’s and prom dresses and had such a flash on Pretty in Pink. Remember how she hacks up a few dresses and sews them together again in an original creation? Those scenes were very inspirational and very “maker” before they even called it that. That dang ‘ol repurpose magic!

anonymiss

I hate to be an asshole but the song is baba o’riley, not teenage wasteland

Felton

Wolfiesma@73: “Those scenes were very inspirational and very “maker” before they even called it that.”

Good point. Does that make the boys in Weird Science “maker” gods? ;-)

Cheddar

“We’re all a jock, a princess, a basket case, a geek and a criminal.”

Did some of the people who commented on The Breakfast club actually see movie or understand it? The whole point is people are all more than the stereotypes and superficial terms in which we see them. That when we get beyond those superficial terms we can actually have empathy and friendship for the people we are stereotyping. How would one imagine telling a story about stereotypes, without making your characters at least somewhat stereotypical?

Also, this message of empathy and friendship is one that is very much needed in our society today. The ideas may be simple, but they are timeless. They relate to everything from school shootings to using terms such as “terrorist” and “axis of evil” to the more recent Henry Louis Gates and Jim Crowley story. Or even as witnessed by some of the comments here stereotyping people as “commercial” versus “alternative”. The world is bigger than that. People are bigger than that. Reality is that nobody is a stereotype.

And maybe John Hughes didn’t have a perfect career, but the few that do have perfect careers seem to die even younger. But we can say that he made at least a few legendary movies.

On a personal note, I can think of no other artist that has had such a profound impact on me. To me his ability to tell stories and express a simple optimism in the world is unmatched. And the idea that John Hughes may have targeted “young, middle-class white people” may be true, but as a young middle-class indian who was born and raised in the US, the ideas and optimism related to me just as much if not more so.

Today I watched The Breakfast Club and loved it even more than the first time I saw it. Rest in Peace John Hughes.

Johnny Cat

I wonder if we could make an argument that Budd Schulberg’s death yesterday could be construed as legacy of un-wonderful things, as well.
Maybe he legitimized the hipster use of the word, “bum.”

Some of teh comments here are rather offensive. The body’s not even cold yet, jeez.

BrotherPower

I blame his parents. No Ma and Pa Hughes, no Fox News. I’m not saying they INTENDED to ruin the world when they procreated, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna let them off the hook for it. Sheesh…

Jesus, what a disappointing thread. Fuck all you haters, not for disliking his movies, but for being in such a hurry to yank the scales from the eyes of the rest of us. Tyrone Goldberg @26 nailed it.

Here’s the lesson of the day: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

That’s good enough for me.

Ugly Canuck

Maybe, tim, but the Home Alone profits kept Murdoch in control.
And lest we forget, he still spreads his charms…

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/08/05/murdochs-ultimatum-to-amazon-give-us-the-names-or-else/

Yes, his dismantling of the Fleet street unions and his charging for online content is “market-driven”, all right, if that’s what you call raw greed. See comment seven in the linkedarticle for more…

Takuan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKUBTX9kKEo

fataltourist

These comments are more depressing than the man’s death.
His 80s movies were a big part of my childhood. I still watch them.
Now I’m going to find a forum thread about the death of some artist that I didn’t care for and make sure everyone knows how awesome I am.

wolfiesma

I don’t think I ever saw Weird Science all the way through. Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles, though, those ones I saw 100+ times each.

hokano

“I hate to be an asshole but the song is baba o’riley, not teenage wasteland”

Here’s the part of Xeni’s post you seem to have missed: ‘Above, a montage of scenes from his films, created by a fan to the tune of the Who’s “Baba O’Riley.”‘

A mere oversight which I don’t believe meets the standard of true assholery.

Cheddar

Ugly_Canuck – Who really cares that one of John Hughes movies saved Fox News? The idea that he will be known as an artist for the company that financed him is ridiculous.

And quit trying to blame Rupert Murdock and Fox News for everything. Yeah, they have an agenda. Just like every other company.

But still there is a reason why Jon Stewart can take clips from all the news channels and not just Fox News. The news media was broken well before Fox News came into the picture. Have you seen what passes for news on the other news networks? Did you see which stories got dropped when Michael Jackson died? Have you seen how few stories are actually covered by any mainstream media source? Just because you politically agree with something does not make it any better in terms of quality.

If anything, hopefully Fox is making us question how bad CNN and MSNBC are too which is a good thing. If not, at least we still have Jon Stewart…

Anyways, give it rest about Fox News already. You made your point. And keep supporting independent news sources, artists, etc.

Boba Fett Diop

ROONEY EATS IT!

jimh

WTF haters.
SAVE FERRIS

Johnny Cat

I guess this is what we get for spilling paint in the garage. Do I stutter?

Anonymous

Penny Marshall?

PENNY MARSHALL?

I needed that laugh this morning.

Itsumishi

R.I.P John.

I was too young to see Ferris Bueller at the time, I was more in time for the Home Alone bracket. That film was about as good as films get for a 5 year old boy. Home Alone 2, just as good for a 7 year old boy!

By the time I saw Ferris Bueller I loved it. Every time I’ve watched it since I’ve loved it.

That film was one of the best 2 teen comedy’s ever made.

Again R.I.P. you were a great writer and great director.

maturin

some scared and lonely kids were made to feel a little less scared and a lot less alone. RIP John Hughes.

Boba Fett Diop

“I don’t think I want to know a six-year-old who isn’t a dreamer, or a sillyheart. And I sure don’t want to know one who takes their student career seriously. I don’t have a college degree. I don’t even have a job. But I know a good kid when I see one. Because they’re ALL good kids, until dried-out, brain-dead skags like you drag them down and convince them they’re no good. You so much as scowl at my niece, or any other kid in this school, and I hear about it, I’m coming looking for you! Take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face! Good day to you, madam.”

Regardless of what you think about Rupert Murdoch or Fox, or whomever, anyone who could write the above quote clearly had an undeniable humanity. Also, it is claimed that John Hughes left Hollywood because of the way studios treated John Candy and the circumstances that led up to his death.

John, I hope you and Johnny LaRue are having some laughs together.

Pantograph

Ferris Bueller taught me that enjoying life is more important than making money, which was a assertion bordering on treason in the Reagan years.

It also taught me that when you’re clever you can get away with nearly everything. Lessons I try to apply to my life every other day.

EH

Aldasin: It’s not about “unanimous agreement,” and I don’t know how you’re inferring that. It’s about eulogies. De mortuis nil nisi bonum.

“And for all who do love his movies: rock on. Personal experience trumps all argument: far be it from me, to insert myself between the lover and the beloved!”

Yet we continue to experience his/her inexplicable drive to beat us about the face and head with Derrida’s corpse, arguing from an admitted ignorance of the subject at hand. Why even post so inappropriately? Assburgers.

Jeez, there’s a Dick Vernon in every crowd.

CH

I was a teenager in the 80′s, and Ferris Bueller is the film that for me captures that time.

Sure, there were other films that also spoke to me as a teenager, but I grew out of them and they don’t quite have that feeling anymore for me. But I can still watch Ferris and get that same feeling that I had then, even seing the name of the movie or somebody referring to it puts a smile on my face.

I do agree with the comments (both here and in the links mentioned in the bb artikle) that John Hughes gift was being able to capture the feeling of being a teenager at that time and speaking to us. Every generation needs stories, be it books or movies, that speaks to them. It may not be a story for somebody not belonging to that generation, but that is beside the point. So, thank you John Hughes, for telling your stories to me when I was a teenager! I’m so sorry that your exit came way too soon.

Ugly Canuck

Oh yes, Tim,I meant to add: the “Market” is an abstraction, existing only in the human mind: the “Market” causes (or actuates) precisely nothing: it’s simply a term to describe a group of transactions, nothing more.
A type of idolatry, IMHO, to use “the Market”,or “market forces”, without much more particular details, as any type of explanatory principle.
Humans, actual humans, make decisions and take actions and cause things to happen: the summation and agglomeration as beheld by reason, by the mind, forms what is called a “society”: but “society” per se does nothing itself; rather, it’s simply a term of convenience, a form of shorthand to describe our multifarious and multitudenous existence.
Just so with the “market”, which is literally no-thing: the term is an agglomerative descriptor, not an denotation of an object which can impel the actions of others….the Market is not itself an actor, or a cause. It’s
just a shorthand term for a whole bunch of discrete transactions. Not some inhuman force causing actions in the “real world”…
So what “market forces” led the FCC to grant Fox in the 1980s the first new network license in the USA in sixty years? Being around about the same time the “equal-time rule” got abolished?

tyrone goldberg

Aldasin thank you for making my point.

I love: “Innocence is bullshit, but to each his own.” Lets take that away from all the children and be sure to forget the time when it existed in us.

ugly canuck, this is 1) not a philosophy or political blog. 2) fact, philosophy and politics are three seperate words, because they have different meanings. Do not confuse your politics and philosophy with fact. 3) I think much to your chagrin, you will find that this very site that you are supporting with your visits is greatly intertwined with the dreaded “mr. murdoch.” Each time you click on this page you are inadvertently supporting news corps interests. Check out DECA’s investors and investors investors….oops.

Now seriously, why can’t this page be one that eulogizes a man who inspired entire theaters to stand up and dance (save for aldasin) to twist and shout.

Cementalicious

How could anyone not love Ferris Buehler’s Day Off? The parade scene is one of the sweetest ever filmed.

Pipenta

I could not get through the video. The intro section with all the short shots flanked by black leader made me sick to my stomach.

Not very sophisticated editing, IMO. A rather literal approach matching the film to the music. But why?

Fail.

Ugly Canuck

Finally, Tim, there is no such thing as “The Market”:only lots of little markets (the market for peaches, the market for newspapers) that are in turn localizedand limited in effects…: so “market forces” would have kept Fox going without the profits from Home Alone, huh? Have you looked over what else Fox released that year? Did you know that Murdoch only met payroll at that time because of the Home Alone checks? I mean The Simpsons had not yet started their run on Fox: BTW, Matt Groening also has a lot to do with Fox News being around. As he well knows: for bart says as much in an episode…. LOL.

EricT

Oh no that totally sucks. We have been showing our 15 year old daughter the classic movies of the 80s. Just last night we watched Some Kind of Wonderful. Yeah yeah but I liked it.
The wife and I were talking about his work. It is my view that what was unique about his films both directed or produced were that he tapped into the teen concious. They were really albeit somewhat over the top the first to really come fro the teens POV. Rather then the Porkiesesque fare that were written by 45 year old men that just wanted to write in tits and ass of young actresses.
I also came to the conclusion that his stories were really class based in their conflict. Rich kids vs Poor kids and the distinctions thereof.
this makes me sad.

Ugly Canuck

I don’t know who “derrida” is, and I’m more familiar with Hughes’ works than I initil\ally thought, as my I hoped my latter postsmade clear.

Never speak ill of the dead? Why not? Because they can’t defend themselves, nor their Estate maintain a suit for slander? Have I slandered Mr. Hughes, by observing that his movies were not of the first class, an opinion shared by many, including prominent film critics?

Above, I speak of the man’s art, and its consequences, which live on: but I do not pretend nor desire nor think myself capable of judging the man.

Is the desire to exercise one’s freedom of expression in an honest open manner on this (or any) topic really “inexplicable”? Is all expression instrumental, or otherwise needful of explication? Nope. Some people think, though, that they know why the bird sings. As if there must be an explanation!

You know , sometimes I am not attempting to get anything at all, not agreement, not attention, not money, not anything, from my comments, except that exercise.

Anonymous

I will be eternally grateful for Pretty in Pink.

Rest in Peace, John Hughes, and thank you for Ducky.

Anonymous

Wow, I had no idea anyone could object to the way John Hughes was able to put his finger on the pulse of the 80s teen. I was one of them. And true, our lines were not as divided between the richies and the poor as they were in Molly Ringwald’s high schools. However, there were still dicks like Steff (who gets his due over at the blog, Things I Want to Punch in the Face) and weirdos like Duckie and thugs with a heart of gold like Bender. He didn’t really create archetypes; he brought them to the screen. And damn if I still don’t want Molly Ringwald’s outfit from the Breakfast Club. That shit holds up.

lesliedotcom

Hughes’s movies meant a lot to my friends and I growing up– he perfectly captured teenagers of the time.

With that said, this link has been making the rounds overnight and I think it’s worth sharing here… gives a good picture of him as a guy:

http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html

FoetusNail

The Who, yes. Oh, I loved his movies too. So long.

Itsumishi

Thanks Canuck. You’ve really made this whole thing more enjoyable.

The guy just died, he touched a lot of people’s hearts and you managed to mince a lot of politics and bullshit into a topic that just really didn’t need it.

Felton

Wolfiesma,

I always considered Weird Science to be a step below the others, so you get to keep your John Hughes Geek Card if I do, never having seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off all the way through.

Anonymous

R.I.P. Mr. Hughes

I cant even remember how many times I watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off! His films really captured my imagination as kid and gave me the idea that you can do whatever you want in the world if you have the balls to have a go at it.

He promoted individuality, and art through mainstream movies – Not easily done.

Filmmaker John Hughes has died.

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